Before we go into how you can use Facebook to promote your business, have a look at the following statistics:
- Facebook has more that 500 millions active users
- The average user has 130 friends
- The average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
- There are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices
- People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

What the above stats tell you is that there are a huge amount of people connected to Facebook, they spend alot of time on Facebook (both using a traditional computer and while on the move using their mobile devices) and they are connected to many businesses and events and share these with their friends.

So how can you get connected to all these potential customers? First step is to create your business page – this is free to do and you can start off with as little or as much content as you wish, adding in extra content whenever you want. You can then suggest this page to friends and other businesses and if they choose to ‘like’ your page, it will appear on their profile becoming automatically visible to all of their friends. They can then suggest your page to their friends and it continues like that.

The important part comes next – be active with your page. This can be with simple updates to your page, adding Facebook-exclusive promotional codes, creating events (such as a sale/promotion, open days, etc) or actively engaging with other Facebook users. Facebook users, and internet users in general, are fed such a huge amount of information constantly, it is important to be on their screen – ‘out of sight, of of mind!’

What if you have a website already – do you still need a Facebook page also? The answer is ‘yes!’ While your website can be a wealth of  information on your business, products and services you offer etc, this is often largely static content. Facebook, on the other hand, will have a certain amount of information on your business but its point is about being active – active and up to date content and information, getting in contact with customers, generating a buzz around your business. Also, there are more and more options to integrate your Facebook into your website so visitors can easily go from one to the other.

The above is only a introduction on what you can do on Facebook and, more importantly, what Facebook can do for your business. The above alone can generate interest in your business, awareness of the products/services you offer and ultimately bodies through the door and real sales at the end of the day. And that is before you consider spending a penny on paid advertising!

For more statistics on Facebook, please visit http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

To create your own page for free on Facebook, please visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?ref_type=sitefooter

However, the effectiveness of an advertising campaign is only as good as the ads.

A powerful ad is one of the most important aspects of your success. And, the secret to a successful ad is your HEADLINE. You only have a split second to grab your targets attention. Your potential customer will most likely scan the ads and only read one if it catches their attention. Write your ads with passion, excitement, and benefits.

When writing your headlines, keep in mind, you only have a few seconds to grab your potential customers’ attention. If your headline doesn’t immediately catch their attention, they’ll simply move on and never return.

Being able to advertise with Google is not at all complicated as new users should find the AdWords pay-per-click platform fairly easy to use.

Those who want to advertise with Google but are new to the world of internet marketing are often afraid of starting because they don’t exactly know what to do or what to expect.

The truth is, the Google AdWords pay-per-click advertising platform is fairly easy to use and can play a very crucial role to the success of any online business or internet marketing campaign

Placing ads on the social networking website Facebook is one of the best opportunities on the Internet for targeted advertising. Because Facebook users provide information about their age, gender, location and interests, you can target your ads directly to the demographic you want to reach.

Affiliate marketing is a form of online advertising where advertisers place campaigns with a potentially large number of small (and large) publishers, whom are only paid media fees when traffic to the advertiser is garnered, and usually upon a specific measurable campaign result (a form, a sale, a sign-up, etc.). Today, this is usually accomplished through contracting with an affiliate network.

There are 3 main types of Advertising Plan
– CPV (Cost Per Visitor) is where advertisers pay for the delivery of a Targeted Visitor to the advertisers website.
– CPV (Cost Per View) is when an advertiser pays for each unique user view of an advertisement or website (usually used with pop-ups, pop-unders and interstitial ads).
– CPC (Cost Per Click) is also known as Pay per click (PPC). Advertisers pay each time a user clicks on their listing and is redirected to their website. They do not actually pay for the listing, but only when the listing is clicked on. This system allows advertising specialists to refine searches and gain information about their market. Under the Pay per click pricing system, advertisers pay for the right to be listed under a series of target rich words that direct relevant traffic to their website, and pay only when someone clicks on their listing which links directly to their website. CPC differs from CPV in that each click is paid for regardless of whether the user makes it to the target site.

But while including images and text on your site is very straight forward, including video can be a little bit trickier. This is because video files can come in different file formats (.mp4, .flv, .avi etc) , video formats (MPEG-4 or H.264 are the more common), can be displayed using different techniques/viewers (YouTube viewer, Flash viewer, Quicktime viewer etc) and some options above are compatible with some broswer but not others. Also, video files are greatly larger in size than images so bandwidth is a major consideration.

When designing your website, you will want to code it to work with the broadest audience possible. And when you are including video on your website, a little more work is involved to achieve this. For example, Flash (which is a very popular choice for implementing video) is not compatible with iPhones/iPads/iPods and Apple have plans to remove built-in support in their Safari browser. And the major browsers (Internet Explorer and Firefox) do not offer across the board support, but this can be remedied quickly with addons and plugins. Up and coming browsers like Google Chrome do offer across the board video support, but with only approx. 10% market share it isn’t wise to bank solely on this option. The good news is that you can code video on your site to be viewable to more than one of the above options. Code to suit different browsers/platforms can be used in conjunction to offer cross-browser support.

So now that you have your video on your site and have set it up to be available to the broadest market, your next step is to make sure people can find it. Ensuring search engines can find your video is called video SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and follows many of the same techniques of standard website SEO. You might be familiar with the usual keywords, descriptions, descriptive file names but what is also helpful is having a transcript of your video (search engines cannot search the contents of a video, but they have no problem searching through text), including links with the video to allow your visitors share your video on their website/social network, including a thumbnail image with descriptive file name – there are many tricks to make your video search engine friendly.

The internet is fast becoming a lot more interactive (with the incredible popularity of networks such as Facebook and Twitter) and websites are very media/content-rich so it’s important to be able to keep the attention of your visitors. And just as important, you need to ensure your traffic increases, or at least continues, and to do this you will need to have your video content search engine friendly.

Image via Wikipedia

According to a study by the e-tailing group and PowerReviews around 50% of Internet users now routinely use the web to research products and services before deciding what to buy.

E-marketer reports that even when the customer buys offline, the web often plays a fundamental role in the purchasing decisions that they make. Respondents to the survey said that online research saved them time and made them more confident about the products and services they were buying.

An increasingly important part of that online research process is  reading consumer reviews. They can do this on specialist consumer review sites like Irish based LouderVoice.com, on niche vertical market review sites like TripAdvisor, and, increasingly, on retailers’ own websites.

Respondents to the “2010 Social Shopping Study” cited customer reviews as the most critical capability for a retailer to have on their website. 71% of respondents said that reviews had a strong influence on their online purchases, while the figure was just 25% and 17% for Facebook and Twitter respectively. 49% of respondents said that lack of consumer reviews would prompt them to leave the merchant’s site altogether.

Despite these impressive figures that put consumer reviews way ahead of other social components in terms of consumer appeal, an earlier study by e-tailing group showed that merchants lend more weight to Facebook pages and almost as much weight to Twitter. Are they missing a trick? Perhaps!

“Customer reviews have become a critical piece of the marketing puzzle, based not only on consumer demand but also on the sales they deliver,” said Pehr Luedtke, CEO of PowerReviews, in a statement.

If you run an e-commerce site on your LetsHost Irish Hosting account, consider letting your best customers tell the world how great your products and services are right on your website, and watch your conversion rates rise.

According to a report by The UK Online Measurement Company (part of the Nielsen group) UK internet users spent 65% more time online during April 2010 (some 884 million hours) than they did during the same period in 2007.

But it’s not just the amount of time we’re spending online that’s changing… it’s also what we do with that time.

In April 2007, Social Networks & Blogs accounted for less than 9% of UK Internet time. In April 2010 they accounted for 23% of UK Internet time.

In absolute terms the amount of time spent on Social Networks & Blogs jumped 340% between April 2007 and April 2010, from 40 million hours to 176 million hours. Only the Coupons/Rewards (516%) and Food & Cooking (363%) sectors showed stronger growth over the same period.

“Despite the large increase in the amount of time people spend online and the increasing proliferation of websites and online services, one thing has remained constant and that is the bulk of time accounted for by communicating, networking and playing games. These are the pillars on which the Internet as a heavily used medium are built.”

-Alex Burmaster on behalf of UKOM.

Irish patterns are likely to mirror, to some degree, the online behaviour exhibited by our nearest neighbours… and these shifts in internet usage are something to consider as you ponder the future online strategy of your business.

In April 2010 nearly 180 million American internet users watched a staggering 30.3 billion online videos between them (comScore). Now those are some impressive numbers!

What’s really great about video is the fact that the barriers to entry are so low… all you need is a decent webcam, or better yet, a digital SLR or dedicated camcorder with HD video recording capabilities, and a bit of imagination.

Here are just some online video options that could work for your business:

• Create a series of “How To” videos demonstrating ways customers can use your product.
• Add some testimonial videos from satisfied customers.
• Create a few short videos to share (and demonstrate) your expertise on your specialist topic.
• Create screen-casts demonstrating how to do something online (a great one if you’re camera shy).
• Showcase videos of your product in action in the real world.
• … or just get creative and entertain your viewers.

Internet Entrepreneur, Loic Lemeur, founder of Seesmic picks the brains of Tim Ferris (author of The 4-Hour Work Week) on how to manage e-mail.

Video is so powerful because it can compresses a lot of information into a relatively short space of time, in a format that’s familiar and easy for the viewer to digest. It’s also incredibly easy to share – and people do, all the time, through social media, blogs, e-mail, mobile….

Getting your video seen

LetsHost hosting accounts give you plenty of space and bandwidth to host your own video files, but for maximum exposure it makes sense to upload your finished masterpieces to one of the leading video sharing sites (YouTube is by far the biggest, others include Vimeo and Yahoo! Video – or upload them ), or use a video distribution service like TubeMogul to upload to multiple sites and destinations.

Once your video is online you can embed it into a blog post or page content on your website for your visitors to enjoy and share.

Online video is huge, it’s still growing fast, and it can be a great way to introduce your products and services to a vast online market.

Image via Wikipedia

Facebook, twitter, blogs, reviews, forums, online video… the web’s gone all social and interactive.

Amongst the legions of fans, followers and friends on social media sites across the web you’ll find your customers.

Do you know where they are, and what they’re saying about your industry, your business, your brand?

Connecting with people through social media can be a great way for your small business to add value and engage in positive, mutually beneficial dialogue with your customers.

From offering insight into consumers’ wants and needs, to pro-active product support to finding new business and referrals, social media channels have a lot of potential for smaller Irish businesses who choose to engage.

Here are just a few of the reasons we think it makes sense to explore the potential of social media for your business:

• With or without you: social media doesn’t go away when you ignore it. People are talking. The conversation is happening, whether you choose to get involved or not. Far better to be an influential player in the game than a spectator on the sidelines.
• Go where your customers are: instead of waiting for your customers to find you on your website, social media gives you a great opportunity to pro-actively take your brand to them where they choose to “hang out” online.
• Your finger on the pulse of your market: ever wondered how you could tweak your product or service offering to deliver more of what your customers really need? Social media lets you tap in to the collective wisdom of the crowd without costly market research and focus groups.
• Build reputation, authority and influence: by pro-actively answering people’s questions, solving problems and offering real value online you can quickly establish a positive perception of your brand in your field of expertise. The next time people need your product or service, guess who they’re going to think of first.
• A bit of personality goes a long way: people do business with people first. Social media gives you a great opportunity to let your customers get to know the personality behind the brand.

Image via Wikipedia

Here at LetsHost we’re always keen to hear from our Web Hosting customers.

We work hard to offer one of the best web hosting deals in Ireland, with a great blend of features, space and bandwidth at what we consider to be great value. But more than that, we strive to make the experience of hosting your website with us an enjoyable and productive one.

We want to hear from you

Your feedback is very important to us. It helps us to fine tune our service to fit your needs.

We love to hear your success stories: how well your website is doing, and how your LetsHost hosting account is helping you to get great online results for your business. But equally we want to know where you think we could do things a bit better, so that we can keep improving.

One of the main reason’s we started this blog, and the LetsHost Twitter Account was to listen to what you have to say, and to make information and advice about your hosting account that much more accessible.

On the blog we’re aiming to deliver valuable content on web hosting, web design, and online marketing that will help you make the most of your LetsHost hosting account. We’re picking article topics that we feel are relevant to you, but the whole point of a blog is that its a two-way-street. You can tell us what you think through its built in comment system.

What hosting and / or website related topics do you want to read about? Drop us a line with your suggestions / questions in the comments below, and we’ll address them in future posts. Let us know what you’d like to see happening on the blog.

We’re looking forward to your input.

Image via Wikipedia

Social Media has been the darling of the digirati, online early adopters and web2.0 advocates for a while now, but 2009 was the year when explosive growth took social media into the mainstream.

Research by Nielson group for the year to May 2009 revealed the following statistics:

• An 82% increase in the total time spent on social networks and blogs in the year to May 2009.
• A 62% increase in the average time per web user spent on social networks and blogs in the year to May 2009
• Traffic on Twitter, the “poster-boy” of Social Media in 2009, grew by a staggering 1,448%

What does the rise of social media mean for you, your brand and your website?

If your peers, your customers and your prospects aren’t already using social media, chances are good that they soon will be. Getting involved in the same online social circles offers you the opportunity to engage in a meaningful dialogue with them.

There’s a global conversation going on, through blogs, social networks, forums, “micro-blogging” platforms and other social media platforms. Here are just a few ways you can harness the power of social media to benefit the online presence of your brand:

• Get and give help and advice: learn what peers and thought leaders in your industry are talking about, and gain insight that can help you in your business, and help others in return.
• Build a community around your brand: people like to feel a connection with the products and services they use, and to interact with the human beings behind the logo.
• Monitor, respond and influence: there’s a conversation going on out there, with or without you. Far better to engage and foster a positive perception of your brand from the outset than to sit on the sidelines.
• Foster ongoing, mutually beneficial relationships: it’s far easier and more profitable to retain existing customers than it is to chase new ones… social media tools can help you to build stronger relationships with a much wider network of people.
• Word of mouth: good news travels fast online… social media offers a wonderful opportunity for people to spread the love about your brand.

Exactly what opportunities social media can offer you depends very much on your business, where your customers congregate online and what you want to get out of it. The best way to find out is to dive in and start exploring… to get started why not try following @LetsHost on Twitter, or post a comment on this blog post?

We’re looking forward to hearing more from you and your business online!